


What Kind of Man

by CaseyMcKay



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-03
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-02-15 23:48:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2247957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaseyMcKay/pseuds/CaseyMcKay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set post-movie. There are some Kree who can't believe that Ronan was taken down by a puny Terran. They track down the so-called Star-Lord to express their displeasure, and to see what kind of man it takes to hold an Infinity Stone. [Rating is for language and physical violence.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Another day, another planet, another satisfied customer. Peter Quill and his merry crew were staying out of trouble (for the most part) and making money (most of the time). Well, okay, they were making money and _trying_ to stay out of trouble. They got points for effort, right?

And this time, there was actually no trouble. Found item, acquired item, delivered item, received payment, and done. Peter was now on his way back to the Milano, weaving his way through crowded streets in the twilight of a fading day.

As he passed a dark alleyway, there was a sudden hard shove to his back that sent him stumbling away from the crowd and into the shadows. He caught his balance after a few steps and spun back to face the three hulking figures that now stood between him and the street. One of them lunged toward him; Peter dodged backward, reaching for both of his blasters and bringing them to bear on the group.

"Hey, guys," he warned. "I don't know who you are, or why you --"

"You are Star-Lord," one of the figures interrupted. The biggest one, on the right.

Something made Peter pause for a moment and keep his mouth shut, despite the small part of his brain that wanted to do a fist-pump and shriek in delight at the recognition. Peter squinted into the light coming from the street; it made it hard to see any distinguishing features of the people standing in front of him. He thought they might be blue-skinned. Maybe. Possibly. "I don't want any trouble," he told them.

"No matter," the one on the right said.

Peter opened his mouth to reply when he felt movement behind him, just a whisper of air, and there was a sting in the back of his neck before he could duck out of the way. His fingers twitched instinctively on the triggers, both blasters fired, one of the figures dropped, and the other shot blew a chunk of stonework out of the side of the alleyway. The two remaining figures were moving. Suddenly there was another one from behind, snatching one of the blasters out of his hand and driving a hard kick into the outside of his knee. Something -- several somethings, maybe -- snapped in the joint, with a sharp cold agony. Peter shouted wordlessly, or maybe it was "Fuck!" He wasn't sure. His head swam and his eyes refused to focus, but he still fought the hands trying to wrestle the other blaster away from him. He pulled the trigger once or twice or a few times, and there was the thud of a body and some more chunks of stonework blasted away. Then his good leg was swept off the ground, his painful leg collapsed under him, and he hit the pavement sideways.

His brain felt seriously rattled. Also weird and heavy. The second blaster was dragged from his grasp, and he couldn't make his arm move to reach for it. Peter couldn't see anything except some blurry shadows against the fuzzy halo of light coming from the mouth of the alley. He didn't hear any voices, but his ears buzzed like white static. Shouldn't there be people coming to see what the shooting was about?

Peter blinked once, twice, slowly. Like molasses. His knee was a wreck of icy hot painfulness, but distant. His whole body felt distant and heavy. Detached.

He blinked again, and the buzzing in his ears got louder. His eyes closed one more time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This my first time posting here, so please let me know what you think! I was going to wait until the story was finished to post it all at once, but I wanted to get something out there to motivate me to write quickly. :)


	2. Chapter 2

The world returned in slowly lengthening flashes of awareness.

A sensation of movement, and a brief glimpse of star-studded sky, cut off by a doorway and artificially bright overhead lights.

Later, hands wrapped under his arms, two beefy humanoids carrying his upper body between them while his boots dragged against a dirty floor.

Voices and jostling and a bright light and Peter thought he made some kind of noise, and something sharp jabbed into the side of his neck and then he was gone again.

*****************************************************************

Peter's eyes flew open and he sucked a breath of air into his lungs. He blinked hard a few times until he was able to focus, at which point he noticed a blue face staring at the side of his head from six inches away, and he made a startled flinch in the other direction.

And then he realized that he couldn't do much more than flinch. He was sitting in a chair, with his forearms lashed to the arms of the chair with long scraps of fabric and ankles secured to the base. No mask earpiece, no blasters. His left knee throbbed with a dull heat. The chair was actually pretty comfortable, though he'd been sitting in it too long if his numb ass was any indication.

There were four people standing in front of him, all blue-skinned Kree, and none of them looked all that pleasant. Two were glowering at Peter, one looked at him like Peter was a particularly disgusting insect, and the fourth -- a woman -- was staring at him impassively. He heard a foot scrape against the floor behind him, farther away, and he could feel someone else looming over his shoulder. He twisted his head to the side to look -- and there was another one in the far corner. Seven Kree, all standing around in an otherwise empty room, and it looked like Peter was the center of attention.

When he faced forward again, the woman made eye contact and _smiled_. Like a shark. She held up an injector and wiggled it between her fingers at him. "Feeling refreshed?" she asked.

If she'd injected him with a stimulant, that would explain the oddly clear thoughts and sensations, after all of the weird fuzziness that came before. "Yep," Peter answered, putting some fake cheer into his voice. "Refreshed and comfortable. You know, if you wanted to talk, there are -- _Fuck_!" He cut himself off as one of the glowering Kree kicked Peter's already-throbbing left knee.

The Kree stepped back to his original place, and then they all stayed where they were and stared at Peter some more.

Peter hissed out a long breath and thought fast. Who had he pissed off lately?

The Kree woman gave him the shark smile again. "You were saying?"

Peter looked at her for a moment before he answered. "If you wanted to talk, there are easier ways to talk," he said. "What do you want?"

Her smile grew. It wasn't reassuring. "Hmmm..." she drew out the sound, and flicked her tongue along her lower lip.

The Kree standing next to her looked like the guy in charge. "We have no need to talk," he answered Peter. Then he gave a sharp nod.

A fist slammed into the right side of Peter's ribcage, instantly followed by another to the gut. He lost track of the flurry that came after, but at least one punch nailed his jaw and rattled a few teeth.

They didn't keep it up for long. When they stopped suddenly, Peter stayed braced for a long moment, waiting for more. Then, Thug 1 and Thug 2 stepped back, and he finally relaxed against the back of the chair. _Shit_ , Kree could hit hard. And these two were especially large-looking Kree, almost Drax-sized. They definitely cracked at least a rib or two -- Peter knew the feeling. He ran his tongue along the inside of his right cheek and tasted blood.

The Kree in charge finally spoke again. "I am sure that you will recall," he said. "On Xandar. You stole something that was not yours, and _murdered_ a great leader."

That didn't sound good. It also sounded true, from a certain perspective. Peter made a puzzled face and tried to look clueless. "What? ... I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You're a murderer," the Kree sneered, "and a _liar_ , who refuses to take responsibility for his crimes. You are Peter Quill." He took a step closer, looming over Peter. " _Star-Lord_. A murderer, and a liar, and a _coward_."

"Look, okay, I was there," Peter admitted. "But you're wrong about what happened."

"I am not wrong. We listened to the stories." The Kree leaned back a smidge, just enough that he wasn't quite looming any more. "Some of the stories are outlandish rumors. Some of them are foolish lies. But many of the stories are the same."

The woman took a step forward. She tilted her head, staring at Peter for a long moment with a blank face. "The stories," she finally said, "tell about the great _heroes_ who saved Xandar." She slid onto his lap, straddling his knees. "The talking rodent, and the murderer Drax, and the traitorous bitch Gamora." Her voice dropped down to icy. "And their heroic leader, the thieving Ravager, who _danced_ on Ronan's grave."

Peter froze, just slightly. "Um, that's not what -- I was just _distracting_ him, not --"

"A _trick_ ," she hissed.

"He was going to _destroy Xandar_ , we had to stop him!"

"Xandar deserved to be destroyed."

Peter didn't immediately have an answer for that.

The woman leaned forward again, and the dull grinding in Peter's left knee flared painfully. She crowded in until they were almost nose-to-nose. Peter pressed back into the chair as much as he could.

"What I do not understand," the woman said, her voice back to an even tone, "is how you were able to use the Infinity Stone against Ronan."

Peter froze again, as the woman reached up with her right hand to run her fingers through his unruly hair in a slow, careful caress. _What the fuck_.

She leaned forward to study Peter's face. "They say that it takes a greatly powerful being to hold an Infinity Stone without being destroyed by it." Her fingers tightened in his hair and yanked his head back at a painful angle, sharp fingernails digging into his scalp. "You don't look like a powerful being."

"Well, you know what they say," Peter said, a little breathlessly, despite the voice in his head screaming, _Shut up! Shut up, you fucking moron!_

"What do they say?" the woman intoned.

"Looks can be deceiving?"

She didn't move for a moment, and Peter didn't move, until her hand slipped down the side of his face to the center of his chest, fingertips resting against his shirt. She looked at him, thoughtful. "That is true," she finally allowed. She took her hand away and reached down to draw a dagger from her tall boot.

"Uh, wait a minute, I didn't mean -- _Wait_ \--"

The woman grabbed a handful of Peter's shirt and he flinched as she slashed downward with the dagger. Not a scratch on him, but the shirt fabric was cut almost all the way down. She grasped the ragged edges and tore it the rest of the way, and then her hands swept the fabric off to either side.

Her gaze roamed over Peter's bare torso, then back up to his face. "You have a pretty face," she said. "And a... pleasing figure."

"Um. Thanks?" The voice in Peter's head was still chanting, _Shut up, shut up, shut up!_

"You are Terran."

"...Yes."

"Terrans are not known for their strength. They have no great power. How did you use the Infinity Stone?" she demanded.

"I don't know. I'm... just lucky, I guess." _Shut the fuck up, do not smart-ass to these people!_ "...Maybe the stone liked me." Peter was never great at impulse control. Or keeping his goddamned mouth shut.

"Hmm," the woman said. "Lucky." She pressed her fingertips to his chest again; her hand flexed, fingers spread and poised, like she could tear straight through his chest wall. Peter had a momentary, uncomfortable flashback to another Kree girl with an unhealthy interest in his thorax.

Then the woman's fingers tightened, fast and strong, and Peter yelped. Her fingernails left five shallow gouges in his skin.

She stared at the marks. "Such fragile skin," she wondered. Her hand stayed planted in the center of his chest, pushing him back against the chair; her right hand raised the dagger again. Peter flinched, then froze, as she dragged the tip of the serrated blade across his collarbone, down past her fingers, pressing harder to open a deeper cut along his sternum and past the bottom of his ribcage.

She paused, then lifted the blade away from his skin, and Peter breathed very shallowly and kept very still while she made another careful cut, starting near his heart and drawing up and across, digging deeper as the blade moved toward his shoulder. He could feel tiny rivulets of blood trickling down his chest.

The woman moved the dagger away and her eyes turned downward. Then she slithered down his body, just far enough to catch the end of the blood trail with her tongue, licking it off his skin with slow, deliberate, _thorough_ strokes as she followed the line of the first cut upward. Then she nosed across his collarbone, taking the same care with the second cut.

Peter was half-turned on and half- _really fucking freaked out_ and his knee didn't appreciate the jostling either way.

When she reached the far end of the cut along his shoulder, she leaned back again and looked at Peter consideringly while sucked her bloodied fingertips clean. Then she licked a few smears of blood off her lips. "Iron," she decided. "You _taste_ like a Terran."

Peter stuttered a little. "I -- I am. I am Terran. Well. Half-Terran."

The woman tilted her head again. " _Half_ -Terran," she repeated. Some of the other Kree leaned a little closer. "And half-what?"

"Nova said -- they don't --" The voice in Peter's head was yelling at him again, but his mouth kept going. "I don't -- I don't know."

"Half- _you don't know_ ," the woman said, sounding less curious and more dangerous. She raised her left hand again, running her fingers lightly across Peter's chest, smearing blood over his skin. "And this fragile skin held an Infinity Stone and was not destroyed. Did it leave a mark?"

Peter couldn't help but glance down at his right hand. He collected plenty of scrapes that day on Xandar, long since healed, but the stone hadn't left a single mark on him. Not physically, at least. Sometimes he still dreamed about burning from the inside out.

The woman followed Peter's gaze. She trailed her hand across his shoulder, down his right arm and over the fabric binding his forearm to the arm of the chair. She turned his hand to face upward, and her fingers started tracing the fine lines running across his palm. "No mark?" she observed.

"Nope -- no, no mark, maybe it wasn't long enough to leave a mark, I mean -- I only held it for, like, a few seconds." A few seconds, a minute -- it felt like an eternity. "I barely held it at all."

"Don't you think you _deserve_ a mark?" she asked. "So that people will recognize you. A thief. Murderer." Her right hand twirled the dagger, quickly slashing the blade across his palm as she spat, " _Hero of Xandar_."

Peter flinched away, but her sudden grip on his hand was like steel.

"I will make a mark for you," she told him. He tried harder to pull his hand away, but she held on. The Kree in charge, watching from behind her, came forward to wrap two strong hands around Peter's wrist and forearm, and pressed them down against the arm of the chair.

"That's -- that's really not necessary," Peter stammered.

She didn't look up from his hand, making another cut next to the first, taking her time with this one and pressing the serrated edge of the dagger a little deeper. "It _is_ necessary," she said. Blood seeped from both cuts, and she drew a third cut diagonally across the others. Peter's fingers twitched involuntarily in her grip.

"You know, I remember it just fine," he offered, pulling uselessly against the three hands holding his arm.

"I would be disappointed if you did not remember."

"I really don't need an extra mark to remember it by." Peter flinched again as she dragged a sharp fingernail through the blood, digging at the cuts. "Obviously other people don't, either. Since everybody seems to know it was me."

"Yes, everyone knows." She looked back up at Peter for a moment. "And yet you do not seem to understand that judgment has been passed," she told him. "You will accept the consequences."

Peter almost didn't want to ask, but he'd feel a lot better if he was worried over no big deal. Because he was worried at this point. "Consequences?"

The Kree holding his arm bared his teeth at Peter in a parody of a smile. "Torture, of course," he answered. "And death. As befits your crimes."

Oh, torture and death. Nothing to be worried about after all. _Shit_.

Maybe someone would notice that he was late getting back to the Milano. He had to be pretty late at this point. Between Gamora and Drax and Rocket, they could figure out where the hell he was. And come rescue him. Soon. Ideally before the death. Hopefully before much more of the torture. The woman kept making these delicate little jabs at his palm with the point of the dagger, like a little kid playing with her dinner. And _that_ was not a mental image that Peter needed right now, thank you very much.

Really, they could feel free to show up any time now. That would be great.

"Hey, now, I'm not an expert in interplanetary law," Peter tried. "But I'm pretty sure I get a fair trial. In a court, with lawyers and a judge. You know, before I get sentenced to death."

The woman looked up from his hand. "You know _nothing_ about true Kree justice," she spat, punctuating the statement with a particularly vicious jab of the dagger. Peter's whole arm jerked.

"Your sentence has been decided," the Kree man told him. "You may plead for mercy if you wish."

"Oh, really? That's... that's great." Peter tried to think fast, but the random jabs at his hand were really damn distracting. "Um, please? Please don't kill me. I'm sorry about Ronan, I really am, but it was really kind of an accident. I had no idea what the stone would do."

"We do not feel very merciful."

Bribery, maybe? "The stone, the Infinity Stone. I can get it for you."

The jabbing paused, and the Kree man narrowed his eyes at Peter. "You lie," he said.

"No! No, I can get it. We hid it somewhere safe. I know where it is." That part was true. "I'll go get it and I'll give it to you." That part was not so true. But it might buy him some time. Maybe they were dumb enough to let him go by himself. And maybe that was just wishful thinking.

The woman spoke again. "The stone would be a great prize," she said.

"It is!" Peter said hastily. "I know a buyer who wanted it. He was offering four billion units. I'll tell you where to find him."

"Perhaps you will," the man said. He let go of Peter's arm and stood up straight. "But we have our thief right here. Why would we allow you to leave with only your word as your bond? Do we seem that foolish?"

"No, no, of course not." Definitely wishful thinking. "I'll tell you where it is, and we can all go together."

"And you will lead us into a trap."

Maybe. He'd been working on a plan. Maybe a tiny percentage of a plan. Damn it.

"No, I think you will stay here. Perhaps your _comrades_ might be persuaded to fetch the stone, in exchange for your life; a priceless jewel for the worthless criminal."

"Sure," Peter said. "That seems like a great exchange. I'm worth nothing. The stone is definitely better than me."

"But there must be justice."

" _Justice_ ," the woman echoed.

The Kree man lowered his face closer to Peter's. "We will offer your life for the Infinity Stone, and we will keep our word. And when the bargain has been completed, we will kill the _rest_ of your thieving crew -- quickly, of course, in exchange for their cooperation. _Then_ we will have justice."

Well, shit. That was a bad deal.

Good thing they couldn't _actually_ get the stone back. ...Well, maybe they could, if they were really determined. But they wouldn't do it. Would they? ... No. Gamora and Drax and Rocket would lie through their teeth to the Kree, and they'd come find Peter and get him out of here and probably kill a bunch of Kree in the process, because they were violent like that.

"Okay," Peter finally said. "That sounds fair."

The Kree narrowed his eyes. "You are an _honorless_ thief and murderer," he pronounced. "You would let your crew come to their deaths, just to save your own pathetic skin. You do not _deserve_ to live."

"But we have a deal, man, you can't just drop it!"

"Very well," the man sneered. "Zoral, you will go to his ship and deliver our _generous_ offer."

Zoral, the woman, tilted her head and furrowed her brow. "After I am done here."

"After you are done?" the man asked her curiously.

"I promised the thief a mark, Tarvath," she said. "His mark is not finished."

Tarvath leaned forward again and held down Peter's forearm. "As you wish," he told Zoral.

"Hey, I think it looks finished," Peter said quickly. He didn't want the jabbing to start again. His palm already looked like bleeding hamburger. "It looks great. _Very_ memorable."

"It needs to be deeper," the woman said. Peter yanked at his arm again, uselessly, and another set of hands clamped down on his shoulders, pinning him to the chair.

There wasn't a chance for anything else before Zoral brought down the dagger again, driving it straight through Peter's hand, all the way to the hilt.

It happened so fast, Peter's brain was still processing the fact. Zoral still had a tight grasp on his two middle fingers, holding his hand out flat, just past the end of the chair arm. The blade stuck straight out the back of his hand, running lengthwise between two of the metacarpals. More blood welled in the center of his palm, running over the sides of his hand and dripping down the length of the blade.

Zoral wiggled the handle of the dagger with her right hand. Peter could feel the serrations on the blade catching on torn flesh, and he felt sick.

And then she twisted the blade sideways. Peter screamed, once, and then heaved in a strangled lungful of air, and pressed his head back against the chair and ground his teeth.

"Is that sufficiently deep?" Tarvath asked from the side. He sounded amused.

"Hmm," said Zoral.

" _Fuck_ ," said Peter.

Zoral yanked the dagger out of his hand. Peter gave a hoarse shout, jerking his whole body forward against the restraining hands and ties, as the serrated blade tore through more flesh on its way out. Then he collapsed back against the chair, shaking with adrenaline while his arm twitched in pained shock.

" _Now_ it is finished," Zoral announced, standing and taking a step back. Tarvath let go of Peter's arm and stood as well, moving away out of Peter's line of sight; the other hands removed themselves from his shoulders.

Peter sat there and just tried to breathe through the pain. Fucking _hell_ , that did some damage.

Tarvath walked back in front of Peter, holding a baton in one hand. A stun baton, it looked like.

"Oh, what the fuck now?" Peter asked wearily. "We made a deal. What else do you want from me?"

"Our deal was for your _life_ , you scum-eating piece of space garbage. Before I grant it to you, I want to hear you _scream_."

Life couldn't get much better. Peter huffed out a breath and stared up at the ceiling and braced himself.

The baton turned on, crackling with power, and hit one of the bruises on his ribs. Peter grunted and convulsed, muscles clenching spastically. The baton moved, Peter had an instant to breathe, and then it hit another spot on his torso and he convulsed again. And the baton moved. And he convulsed. Rinse, lather, repeat. Sometimes Tarvath even paused long enough for Peter to get almost a full breath. Nice, not letting him suffocate.

There was another breathing pause, and then Tarvath grabbed Peter's bloody hand and jammed the end of the baton into the hamburger meat. Peter screamed.

Tarvath smiled.

And shoved the baton a little harder.

Peter ran out of breath, and he choked and gasped, and some kind of pained animal noise came out of his mouth.

The baton finally moved, and Peter had a second to be thankful, and then the end of the baton hit the side of his neck and he thrashed until he lost track of things.

At some point the thrashing stopped. The baton was gone again. Peter felt numb and disjointed and hot and cold, like tripping on a bad batch of painkillers. Indistinguishable blue faces untied his arms and feet and dragged him out of the chair and dropped him on the floor, and then they manhandled Peter out of his jacket and torn shirt. When they jostled his hand carelessly, he could only groan.

Then they went away. Peter made an effort to drag his right hand towards him. It felt like it took forever. Movement was slow and heavy; every muscle in his body ached.

Finally he was able to cradle his hand against his chest.

The baton came back.

More fire racing along his nerves, uncontrollable convulsing, muscles burning until they felt like jelly. His arm jerked and his hand hit the floor, and Peter's brain finally turned out the lights and crawled into a deep dark hole.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the next installment! More coming soon. Kudos and comments are so encouraging -- please feel free to send more! :)


	3. Chapter 3

Quill was late. This in itself wasn't unusual, but now he was overdue by more than five hours. At two hours, they had assumed that he had found a bar and a pretty girl to flirt with. At four hours, Drax had left the ship to troll some of the local establishments, keeping an eye out. Just in case.

By now, even Rocket was starting to wonder where Quill was.

On the table in the Milano's common area, next to Groot's pot, a comm device buzzed. Groot waved his arms and announced in a small voice, "I am Groot!"

"Yeah, we heard it," Rocket replied, peering down the ladder from the cockpit.

Gamora snatched up the device.

"I have returned," Drax's voice came from it. "You should come outside. We have a... visitor."

Gamora looked at Rocket across the room. "We're on our way," she replied to Drax. Rocket scrambled down the ladder and followed her to the lower hatch.

When they stepped down onto the ground, Drax was standing just to the side of the hatch. A Kree woman waited a few paces away, wearing a familiar red leather jacket and looking smug.

Drax gestured at the Kree with one hand. "This Kree woman knew my name," he told Gamora and Rocket. "She claims that she and a number of others have captured Quill, and are willing to return him for a price."

The three of them stared hard at the woman, who continued to look smug. "We are many," she assured them. "And we have searched for him across many worlds, ever since we learned who it was that murdered Ronan the Accuser. His murderer's life is ours to claim, and we do not wish to give up that claim so easily."

Rocket snarled quietly from Gamora's side.

"What is your price?" Gamora asked, her face remaining blank.

"Peter Quill tells us that you have hidden the Infinity Stone," the woman said. "If you bring it to us, we will spare his life."

That damned stone. Gamora kept her voice steady as she countered, "And if we do not?"

A dark smile slid across the woman's face. "Then he will beg for death while we carve his body into small pieces."

Drax's face was thunderous, but he kept silent; so did Rocket. Gamora stared at the woman and considered their options, quickly.

"Here," the woman said abruptly. She slid Quill's jacket off her shoulders and flung it to the ground at Gamora's feet. "As a reminder, to move quickly... Or as a token of remembrance, should you fail."

Rocket darted forward and snatched up the jacket. He sniffed at it, and growled low in his throat.

The woman smiled again.

Gamora held out a hand toward Rocket and he wordlessly handed her the jacket. She pulled it across her own shoulders, inhaling through her nose. The jacket smelled like Peter. It also stank of sweat and blood.

Gamora thought for a few moments longer. These people were Kree, seeking to avenge Ronan. Yet this woman claimed they would be willing to forego their life-claim for the stone. Gamora was surprised that they were offering to forego their life-claim for _anything_ , even an Infinity Stone. In fact, she was willing to gamble that it wasn't true. Stone or no stone, the Kree would want to take the life which they were owed. It occurred to Gamora that the woman had only offered to spare Quill; Gamora's own life, or Drax's, or maybe Rocket's would satisfy the Kree. Or all three of them. For now, Quill was probably still alive; he needed to stay that way long enough to be rescued. Gamora needed to buy time.

"You over-estimate the Terran's value," Gamora finally stated. "He will be missed. But we would rather keep the stone."

She could feel Rocket and Drax staring at her in surprise, trying to decipher her thoughts.

The Kree woman gave a small sarcastic bow. "As you wish," she said, and turned and sauntered away, back towards the main part of the town.

Gamora turned as well and told the others, "Get inside the ship. We're leaving." Still wearing Quill's jacket across her shoulders, she strode through the hatch and headed into the common area.

A moment later, Rocket and Drax stormed in after her, and stopped at the sight of Groot carefully accepting the jacket from Gamora's hands. Groot was growing fast these days, but the jacket was still bigger than he was.

"I am Groot?" he asked Gamora quietly.

"We'll get him back," Gamora promised. Groot hugged the jacket close to his small body.

Rocket spoke from the other side of the table. "And how are we gonna get him back?" he demanded. "Our best lead just walked away!"

"We should have taken _her_ hostage," Drax said, "and ripped out her fingernails until she told us where to find Quill."

Gamora shook her head. "No. Our best chance is with the element of surprise."

"Then why didn't we just say we'd get the stone?" Rocket asked. "Now they're gonna kill him!"

"Not quickly." Gamora studied the jacket in Groot's arms. "If the Kree thought we were going to return with the stone, they would hurt him as much as they could in the intervening time. But, if they think that Peter's life will be their only prize... they will take it slowly." Gamora looked up and met their eyes. Drax looked grim; Rocket looked angry. They both looked determined.

"All right," Rocket said. "Let's surprise 'em, then."

Gamora nodded. "We need to leave this place. The Milano is too conspicuous. We can fly to the next planet and take another ship."

"And then we'll get back here and save the princess," Rocket concluded.

"And remove the heads of those who have harmed Peter Quill," Drax added.

Gamora nodded her head in answer to both of them. "Yes."

 

\-----------------------------------------------------

 

Peter woke more slowly this time. He'd been moved, and he was slumped bonelessly in the chair, but on the plus side he wasn't bound this time. And he didn't feel drugged. But he still felt like shit. And he smelled. Apparently he'd pissed himself at some point while being zapped into unconsciousness. Awesome.

"He wakes," a voice announced. "Tell Tarvath." It sounded nearby, but not too close. Peter couldn't be bothered to move his head to look; he just cradled his right hand with his left arm against his chest, closed his eyes, and waited.

After some time -- Peter wasn't sure how long -- footsteps approached. Peter opened his eyes again as Tarvath strode into view in front of him. He wasn't holding the baton this time; Peter, deciding to be cautiously optimistic, took this as a positive.

"How was your sleep? Are you rested now?" Tarvath asked politely, and completely seriously -- no sneering, no menace, no sarcasm that Peter could detect.

Peter stared at him in slight disbelief. "Are you kidding me? No! No, I'm not rested, and my sleep was pretty damned lousy."

Tarvath nodded, and gestured at someone behind Peter. One of the other Kree walked forward and stopped next to Peter, holding out a cup. "Drink," Tarvath told Peter.

"Uh, no. I am not drinking whatever crap you put in there."

"It is water," Tarvath said. "And nothing else. You should drink."

Peter didn't reach for the cup. "I don't trust you not to poison me."

"Why should we wish to poison you?" Tarvath asked curiously.

"Well, you know, torture and death."

Tarvath shook his head patiently. "Poison is an honorless weapon. We have no wish to poison you."

"Oh." This politeness was weird. But as long as the torture and death seemed to be on hold, Peter wasn't going to complain. "Well, ok, then." He reached out and took the cup from the Kree standing next to him. Watching Tarvath the whole time, Peter cautiously took a sip. It tasted like water. And Peter was thirsty, so. He drank the rest of it, slowly, and then finally handed the cup back to the Kree, who took it and went back in the direction he came from.

"When we _do_ take your life," Tarvath said, "You will know it. And it is not yet time for that. The torture will continue."

 _Until morale improves_ , Peter thought, a little hysterically.

Tarvath made another gesture, and two other Kree came forward -- Thug 1 and Thug 2, from before. One of them held a loose coil of narrow-gauge cargo webbing.

"Hold out your hands," Tarvath told Peter.

Peter didn't think he liked where this was going. He didn't move.

"This will be more painful if you fight us."

Probably true. Also, Tarvath was still being weirdly polite. Peter thought about it for another second, and then offered his left hand.

The two Thugs worked together, wrapping part of one strap a few times around Peter's wrist in a kind of braid. Brisk and clinical. He hesitantly lifted his right hand and they repeated the process on that wrist with another strap, and then they braided the ends together. Peter winced at some incidental jarring of his hand, but otherwise they didn't touch the mess of torn flesh and mostly dry, crusted blood.

When they were done, his wrists were each wrapped securely and held together by a short braid of strapping. He gave a subtle experimental tug, but it didn't feel like there was any give in the bindings. He dropped his hands into his lap.

"Very good," Tarvath said. "Now, you will stand and come to me."

Peter just looked at him. "For more torture, I assume."

"Of course."

"And you expect me to just follow along here?" Peter asked. Not that he wasn't thrilled at the prospect of more torture. But everything else aside, he didn't think his left knee would take his weight.

Tarvath gestured again, and the Thugs grasped Peter by the upper arms and hauled him out of the chair, dragging him a few steps forward towards Tarvath. When they stopped, Peter straightened and tried to stand mostly on his right leg.

"I wondered how long you might cooperate." Tarvath smiled, and the predatory edge was back. "Like a young animal to the slaughter."

Well, there went any inclination that Peter might have had to keep his head down. Figuratively, _and_ literally. Fighting them would cost him some extra pain and hardship, but the hell with taking the easy way out.

Peter spat a bloody gob onto Tarvath's boots. Because. It seemed like the appropriate thing to do.

Tarvath looked down at his boots and back up at Peter. And then, still smiling, he lifted his foot and stomped down on Peter's right ankle, hitting it at an angle from the outside. There was a _crack_ , and sharp pain lanced through Peter's ankle, and then it wouldn't support any of his weight and he slumped in between the two Kree holding him up.

" _Fuck_ ," Peter gasped. Then the Thugs let go of him and let him collapse gracelessly to the floor. More pain echoed through his body at the impact. He took a few seconds to catch his breath, and then he hissed, "Son of a _bitch_."

"Rudeness will not serve you well," Tarvath informed him.

"Maybe not, but it sure as hell makes me feel better."

"Bring the chain," Tarvath said to the Thugs.

Peter blinked at the floor, trying not to think of all the ways this could go. Regardless, it was probably going to really suck.

There was a rattling sound, and Thug 2 reappeared carrying a heavy chain. He dragged the chair a little closer and stepped up onto the seat, reaching up to drape the chain over one of the crossbeams running just below the ceiling. Thug 1 passed one end of the chain between Peter's arms, running it under the braided length of strapping between his wrists. Then he passed the end back up to Thug 2, who looped it back over the crossbeam and started hauling both ends of the chain downward to shorten the loop.

The loop of chain between his wrists dragged Peter's arms upward, and the rest of him followed gradually. Tarvath made another sharp gesture when Peter's arms were stretched over his head and his feet were still dragging on the floor; the pulling stopped, and Thug 2 secured the links of the chain together on top of the crossbeam.

Peter managed to grab hold of the chain with his left hand, pulling downward to support some of his weight, and tried to balance a little on his left leg. His knee felt wobbly and the throbbing worsened, but it was still better than the awful grinding in his right ankle every time it moved.

Thug 2 stepped down off the chair and dragged it back to its original place. The Thugs both walked away, and Tarvath stood where he was, watching Peter with that predatory smile.

Behind Peter, there was an odd, crackling _whoosh_. It took him a moment to place the sound -- a hybrid gas-electric welder. _Shit_. He tensed.

A line of searing heat burned across the back of his left thigh, just above the knee, and he yelled hoarsely, and suddenly all of his weight was hanging from his arms.

Zoral strolled around Peter's left side, stopping in front of him. She was wearing heavy-duty work gloves; in her left hand she held a metal rod that was glowing dull red with heat, and in the other she carried a hand-held welding torch. She traced the end of the rod along his lower left ribs, leaving a line of seared skin in its wake.

"Fucking bitch," Peter swore. He struggled to shift some weight back onto his left leg, burn be damned, because hanging dead weight from his wrists wasn't something he wanted to do, particularly.

"Someone gag him," Zoral said off-handedly. "I don't want to listen to him anymore."

Tarvath objected. "You do not find his screams enjoyable?"

"When _you_ resume the torture, you may remove the gag and listen to his screaming," Zoral replied. "I find it tiresome." Her eyes snapped back to Peter's face, and then she looked back down at the rod in her left hand, passing the welder over the rod to reheat it.

Holy shit, Peter was never going to sleep with another Kree girl, _ever_. He'd have flashbacks to this freak.

A pair of blue hands crammed a wad of fabric in between Peter's teeth, then followed that with a longer strip of fabric and tied the ends in back of his head.

The rod was glowing a bright, hot orange in a few spots by the time Zoral looked up again. She studied the thin burn mark along Peter's left side, and held the rod parallel to it. Peter clenched his teeth and gasped through the gag as Zoral pressed the length of the rod into his skin just below the first mark.

"I met your _friends_ ," Zoral said, finally taking the rod away from Peter's skin after a few long, agonizing seconds. Her tone was conversational, casual. Who the _hell_ sounded like that while they were torturing someone? A psychopath, that's who.

Fucking great, he was being tortured by psychopaths. Something he could cross off his bucket list.

"They declined to bring us the Infinity Stone," Zoral continued.

Of course they declined. The stone had to stay with the Nova Corps. Who knew what the hell could happen if these people got their hands on it? Now he just hoped that Gamora and Drax and Rocket were figuring out where he was -- or, better yet, were already on their way here.

Zoral pressed another searing line into his side, just below the other two. Peter managed to not make any sound this time.

"They're not coming for you," Zoral told him. "They flew away in your ship."

They _what_? ...Right, of course, it was a diversion. Make the bad guys think they were gone for good.

She twirled the rod in her gloved hand like a baton, and pressed it hard against Peter's left forearm. His hand spasmed and his weight jerked down onto his wrists. His left knee collapsed under the added weight; pain shot through his right ankle as it jarred against the floor. He groaned into the gag.

Zoral turned away for a moment, and handed the welder and one glove to another Kree. Then she turned back to Peter, her gloved left hand still holding the rod. She gave it another twirl and said, "They told us we could _keep_ you. The stone is worth more to them than your life is, apparently."

Of course the stone was worth more than his life. But that didn't mean they wouldn't still come for him.

" _Gamora_ seemed particularly uncaring. She is a cold, murdering _bitch_ , after all."

But they were more than outnumbered by these Kree, and Kree were tough motherfuckers. Was Peter's life really worth risking theirs?

"It _was_ the practical decision," Zoral admitted. She reached up with her bare right hand and let her fingernails trace lazy, swirling patterns down Peter's torso, scraping across the thin cuts that she'd made before with the knife, drawing little trickles of blood where her fingernails caught on the scabs.

It was a hell of a risk. Drax might be crazy enough to go for it; but Gamora was nothing if not practical, and Rocket usually had the most common sense out of all of them.

"Of course, it means that we will kill you." Zoral pressed the length of the rod into Peter's chest, and he could _smell_ his flesh sizzling. She leaned in, close enough to smell the burning, probably close enough to feel the heat coming off the rod. "But the torture may last for a long, _long_ time before then."

If they did the smart thing, the practical thing, they had left and they weren't coming back. It was too much of a risk.

Peter realized, _Oh god, I'm gonna die here_. And then he thought, _But if it's you or them, jackass? Do you really want them to get killed trying to save you?_ They would be fine without Peter. Maybe they'd miss his stupid jokes and his singing. Or, maybe they wouldn't. They might kill each _other_ next time Rocket and Drax got into argument, but... But they wouldn't get killed because of Peter.

Zoral finally leaned back and lifted the rod away from his chest. "When you eventually die, it will be in _agony_ ," she promised. She moved the rod down and laid it across Peter's right side, pressing it in harder as she leaned towards his chest again. "I hope you _beg_ for death by the end."

 _Like hell I will_. Peter bit down on the gag between his teeth. _Star-Lord doesn't beg_. He grabbed the chain again with his left hand and pulled upward, setting his wobbly left leg beneath him. If he was going out, he was going out like a man. On principle. These assholes didn't deserve to see him crack.

Zoral moved the rod away from his side, smiling delightedly at the determination that showed on Peter's face. "Ooh, he has _spirit_ ," she said.

Peter glared at her silently. He hoped she could sense the _Fuck you_ that he was thinking.

"It's no _fun_ when they have no spirit."

She swung her arm, and the rod slammed against the back of Peter's left hand, and his fingers lost their grasp on the chain. As he fell, Zoral kicked his left foot off the floor, and his full weight came down on his wrists with a short, hard jerk -- except for the small amount that came down on his right foot. Something _crunched_ in his ankle.

Peter didn't try to get back up. For a few seconds he let himself hang there, breathing hard through his nose.

Then Zoral reached up with her right hand and traced her fingertips down the side of his face. Peter glared at her.

Her fingers clenched into a hard grip on his jaw, pushing his head back and sideways, and she shoved the rod against the soft part of his throat, just below the jawbone. Seared nerve endings shrieked and Peter let out a choked grunt. Sick dizziness hit him suddenly; his vision went warped and gray at the edges.

Then the hot metal was gone, but his skin felt like it was on fire. Peter still felt sick and dizzy. There were fingers in his hair, pulling his head back up, and Zoral's face was too close. He blinked slowly at her.

Abruptly, the fingers jerked away from his head and then five sharp points dug into the burn mark on his chest. Peter gasped for breath and his vision sharpened; Zoral's face was still inches away from his, staring at him. She dug her fingernails in a little harder and he flinched.

She stared at him for a moment longer, and then asked, "Are you paying attention now?"

Peter nodded jerkily.

"Good." She dropped her hand away from the burn. "You are not permitted to rest yet." After another moment of watching Peter's face, she finally turned away to wave an arm at one of the other Kree.

When she moved out of Peter's line of sight, there was Tarvath standing a few paces behind her, watching the proceedings and looking amused.

Zoral came back after a few moments. She wasn't holding the rod anymore, but the welder was in her left hand, flaring white-hot at the business end. In her right hand was her favorite dagger. She ran the blade across the tip of the welder a few times, until the edge of the blade just started to glow. Then she stepped close to Peter again.

Peter didn't try to grab the chain this time. As Zoral stood in front of him, she was eyeing his arms speculatively. And at this point, he didn't think either his knee or his ankle would hold up for more than a few moments. So he let himself hang from his wrists, and he waited for Zoral to make a decision.

Finally she raised the dagger and made a long, shallow cut down the inside of Peter's right arm. The blade was hot enough to burn, but not hot enough to completely cauterize the cut; Peter could feel blood beginning to trickle down his arm in the wake of the knife.

Peter kept his eyes determinedly fixed on the far wall, over her shoulder.

Zoral leaned closer. She pressed the edge of the blade gently into the burn mark on his throat. Peter made a small, pained noise, and Zoral spoke softly next to his ear. "Oh, we have _such_ plans for you."

 


	4. Chapter 4

The Milano was safely berthed in a large, anonymous port on a moon at the edge of the system; they used a fraction of the reward from their last contract to purchase another small ship, cheap and unremarkable but space-worthy. Once they returned to the planet, they kept as low-profile as they possibly could, because the Kree would kill Peter sooner rather than later if there was any warning.

They asked questions and they scouted, quietly and thoroughly. Gamora cleaned her sword, and Drax sharpened his knives, and Rocket made sure his favorite gun was in perfect working order. Rocket also made a handful of explosive devices. And they planned.

 

\--

 

Zoral had taken her sweet time. She'd switched back and forth between the dagger and the rod a few more times. She occasionally poked at Peter's right hand, and seemed satisfied with the desperate noises he made through the gag. She never seemed to be bored, merely curious, and sometimes frighteningly gleeful. The whole time she studied him critically, observationally: how many different ways can we make the half-Terran flinch? What makes him breathless? When does he make the loudest noises?

It went on forever, long past the point where Peter gave up on stoicism. Fuck principle. He just wanted it to end. He might have even asked her politely to _please_ stop, if he'd been able to speak.

By the time she finally decided to take a break, he was barely conscious.

When they lowered the chain until his knees hit the floor, Peter roused enough to notice that they had removed the gag and were trying to pour water down his throat. He managed to swallow rather than choke on it -- mostly. Then they left him alone for a while and he eventually passed out.

 

\--

 

Some indeterminate amount of time later, Peter was woken by a bucket of cold water to the face, immediately followed by a stun baton to the back. He was screaming before he even realized what was happening.

The baton was taken away, but Peter could still hear it humming ominously. His chest heaved as he gasped for breath. Tarvath walked around from behind him and made another quick jab of the baton into Peter's side, just enough to make the muscles along his ribcage spasm painfully.

Then Tarvath stepped back and gestured, and the chain between Peter's wrists was pulled up again.

Everything hurt. His shoulders burned with the added stretch as the chain dragged his body upward. He had been kneeling long enough for his knees to stiffen up; the left one felt like one wrong move might snap whatever ligaments remained. His right ankle felt swollen and stiff inside his boot. His skin itched with drying blood. He could feel the burn marks; the deepest ones were spots and lines of painful numbness, with a faint burning sensation lingering in the less-damaged surrounding skin. His right hand and some of the deeper burns and more ragged cuts felt feverishly warm -- especially the deepest burn on the back of his left thigh and a handful of others scattered across his legs, which probably had pieces of fabric seared into them. The rest of him felt freezing cold. It was hard to tell how much was the fever and how much was the cold water dripping down his skin.

This time, when Tarvath gestured and the chain was secured once again, the toes of Peter's boots were barely scraping the floor. Probably better for his knee and ankle, but worse for his shoulders and wrists. You win some, you lose some.

"And how was your sleep?" Tarvath asked, and _there_ was the sneering that Peter expected.

"Great, slept like a baby," Peter sneered back with as much energy as he could muster.

"Wonderful news." Tarvath shoved the baton into Peter's side again, and the muscles seized hard enough that Peter was reminded extremely painfully of his cracked ribs.

This one ended after a few seconds. When Peter caught his breath, he asked, "And why would you give a shit about how I'm sleeping?"

"If you are rested, perhaps your stamina will be improved."

Peter rolled his eyes. "Yeah, maybe, if you avoid zapping my fucking _brainstem_ this time."

"Ah, of course," Tarvath replied, walking back around to stand behind Peter. "Excellent advice." The baton touched the back of Peter's neck, just for an instant; his head snapped back and his vision flashed white.

Then his head just hurt, and he let it roll forward. He could see sparkles swimming across his field of view. They were a nice addition to the dirty, blood-spattered gray floor. "That right there," he said dully after a moment, "that would be my fucking brainstem."

"Ah."

Tarvath was an asshole and a sadist. He was also impatient and kind of repetitive.

The baton jammed into Peter's lower back. Right on the vertebrae. Fire shot through his spine and his head snapped back again as _everything_ seized. His back arched so hard he thought it might break.

This went on for interminable seconds.

Finally the baton moved away. Peter gasped for breath while his back muscles continued to twitch.

"You," Peter said between gasps, "are an... unimaginative... _asshole_."

The baton zapped the back of his shoulder and his whole arm jerked.

"Unimaginative, perhaps," Tarvath finally replied. "But effective at causing pain, nonetheless."

"But aren't you sick of this yet? Same old, same old... It has to get boring after a while." Hopefully. Maybe if Tarvath got bored enough, he'd stop? At least for a little while? Or maybe he'd just zap Peter into unconsciousness. Again. That would work, too.

Tarvath came forward to stand facing Peter. "Oh, there are many more... _possibilities_. If we tire of one form of torture, we will move on to another."

Or, apparently, if they got bored he would have new painful experiences to look forward to. "Oh, great, new kinds of fun and games," Peter said. "Fantastic. I can't wait."

"Regardless of the method, I will _savor_ this for as long as I can. For as long as you remain _defiant_." Tarvath raised the baton and trailed the end of it down Peter's arm.

Peter gritted his teeth and remained silent.

"For as long as you can still _scream_." The end of the baton struck Peter's right hand and dug into the crusted, torn flesh of his palm, and Peter screamed, then. Suddenly another bucket of water caught him in the face, from the side this time, and the scream turned into choked coughing.

" _Fuck_ you," Peter sputtered, when he could breathe again.

"No, thank you," Tarvath replied lightly. "I have other plans... But you should ask Zoral."

Nope. _Hell_ no. They were all scarier-than-usual assholes, but Zoral was fucking creepy.

Tarvath laughed. "Your face gives you away," he said. "Zoral is a treasure, is she not?"

"Zoral is a _fucking crazy bitch_." She was a fucking crazy bitch with a new favorite game: Let's See How Much Peter Quill Can Take Before He Cracks. Peter didn't like that game. Zoral was pretty good at it.

"Indeed." Tarvath looked inspired suddenly. "I will relay your... suggestion. I am sure that she will find it intriguing."

There was a tiny flash of panic in Peter's brain that started unfurling into a whole string of nasty ideas. He tried to keep the panic from showing, but he didn't entirely succeed.

Tarvath laughed at him some more. "Perhaps you _will_ beg for death, after all."

Fevered delirium was starting to sound nice. Peter willed the infection to work faster. Septic shock was a lousy way to go, but at least he'd be out of his mind. _Please god_ before Zoral got any more ideas. Tarvath was an asshole and a sadist, but he just made Peter feel painful, and weary, and angry. Zoral was fucking scary. She had the patience of a robot and the creativity of an insane artist. With Zoral, begging might start to seem like a really good idea.

Tarvath spoke to one of the always-present Kree behind Peter. "Find Zoral," he said. "Ask her if she is ready for another visit with our _guest_. I believe she was searching for a power cell. Help her search, if necessary."

Shit. Peter sincerely hoped that Zoral tripped and fell and broke her goddamned neck.

Tarvath turned back to Peter and raised the baton again, and then he paused. There was a speculative gleam in his eyes. "I will leave you for now," he finally decided. "You should save your strength for Zoral."

Then Tarvath walked away. Peter was almost tempted to ask him to come back and zap his brainstem some more. A few good hits could fry out some neural circuits, so Peter might not even notice when Zoral came back.

But Peter kept his mouth shut, and the footsteps faded.

His wrists hurt, and his back hurt, and his shoulders, and a lot of other things. He tried to focus on those, and not on Zoral's weirdly specific shopping list.

There weren't enough distractions in the galaxy to keep him from thinking about that. Not when he was stuck hanging here, staring at a blank wall and a dirty floor, with the ever-present handful of anonymous Kree lurking on the other side of the room.

It was more than a few minutes, but probably less than half an hour. Peter wasn't sure that he was experiencing time linearly anymore. Whatever. Tarvath was back, and he looked gleeful.

"I am not sure what she plans to do," Tarvath told Peter. "But I am _sure_ that it will be _terribly_ fascinating."

Then Peter heard Zoral's voice behind him, not too close, but close enough that Peter gave a tiny, barely noticeable flinch. "Move him to the chair," she commanded. "And bind him. Securely. I don't want to be distracted by flailing limbs."

Thug 1 and Thug 2 appeared, and the chair was dragged closer to Peter and another anonymous Kree stepped up to unwind the chain from the crossbeam. As they lowered him onto his feet, Peter's left knee refused to lock and started to fold under the pressure. Dull pain shot through his swollen right ankle, but he ground his teeth and pulled with his arms and held part of his weight with his screaming shoulders.

They dragged the chair a little closer and shoved Peter into it. He struggled, half-heartedly, because it felt better than doing nothing. But Kree were a lot stronger than humans, and there were four of them and only one of Peter. He was going nowhere.

The loose end of the chain was pulled up and they slung it back over the crossbeam, out of the way.

While two of the nameless Kree lashed Peter's ankles and calves to the chair's legs, the Thugs unbraided the cargo straps holding his wrists together, and used the loose ends to tie his wrists to the arms of the chair. They came up with two strips of fabric to tie down his elbows, and another length of cargo strap went around his waist. Then they moved back to the other side of the room.

Showtime, motherfucker.

Zoral strolled past him, carrying a small storage crate. She set it down on the floor in front of Peter; another Kree followed her, set down a large power cell next to the crate, and retreated.

Where the _hell_ did she find a power cell that size, just lying around?

Zoral leaned down to rummage through the crate. "This place is full of interesting things," she said, removing a thin coil of insulated wiring, placing it on the floor, and turning back to the crate.

Peter had some ideas about the power cell, and the wires. It was going to hurt. Probably in new and interesting ways.

Then Zoral straightened, brandishing a handheld power drill. "See what I discovered, hiding on a dusty shelf."

Oh, _god_ , now she had a fucking _power drill_ to play with. Last time, she had thoroughly dismantled Peter's resolve with some judicious application of heated metal to skin. Peter didn't want to find out what she could do with a power drill.

Even Tarvath looked a little surprised. "And what will you do with that?"

"I have not yet decided," Zoral answered thoughtfully. "I may have a use for it later." Her head swiveled toward Peter, and she asked him, "What do _you_ think?"

Peter thought a lot of things, but he kept it simple. "I think you're a sick bitch."

"That is not a nice thing to say." Zoral turned her whole body then and did a little hip-shimmy in Peter's direction. "Do you not find me _desirable_ , Star-Lord? You are a man with something of a... reputation, after all. Do you not wish to _lie_ with me?"

Peter glared up at her and tried to make himself as clear as possible. " _Hell_ no. Not if you _paid_ me."

"Well, now I am _insulted_ ," she said.

"Too bad."

"No man has ever refused me." She reached down to pick up the coil of wiring, and removed a pair of wire-cutters from the crate. "Clearly, this is a challenge I must overcome."

Tarvath raised his brow. "No man? Ever?"

" _No_ man," Zoral said firmly. She unwound and cut two long pieces of wiring, efficiently stripping a few inches of insulation from the ends.

"You inspire desire and fear in equal measures, I'm afraid," Tarvath told her.

Zoral leaned down again, checked that the power cell's output was turned off, and wrapped one exposed end of each wire around each of the terminals. "Perhaps," she said. "But I can be _very_ persuasive." She traded the wire-cutters for a small spanner, and shoved the power cell closer to Peter.

Peter looked down at the power cell, and then back up at Zoral. "Not persuasive enough," he told her.

"Oh, on the contrary." She slid carefully onto his lap, straddling his knees. "This time, _Star-Lord_ , you _will_ beg... for _me_."

"No way in _hell_ ," Peter promised. "Beg for death, maybe. For _you_? Not in a million years." He managed to show more attitude than he felt. Internally, Peter was the tiniest bit afraid that Zoral might be right.

Zoral threaded her fingers through Peter's hair and wrenched his head backwards. "You will," she said. "And... _then_ , perhaps... you may beg for death." She glanced over her shoulder. "Tarvath, some assistance, please?"

Peter could see Tarvath approaching from the corner of his eye.

"Hold him like this," she instructed, forcing Peter's jaw open with her other hand.

Tarvath's hands replaced Zoral's. For a moment, Peter was confused -- _What, she's going to yank out teeth now?_

Then Zoral took the free end of one of the wires attached to the power cell, and used her fingers to wrap it around one of Peter's lower left molars. It took a few moments of Zoral fiddling and Peter wincing, but she got the wire jammed in down to the gumline.

Peter wasn't confused any more. This was going to be worse than pulling teeth.

"Thank you, Tarvath, that will be all," Zoral said.

Tarvath took his hands away and stepped back. "No gag, then?" he asked.

"No. When he does beg, I wish to hear it _clearly_."

"But will he not scream? You said before that you found it tiresome."

"He will. Most assuredly." She reached down to drag the power cell closer, and picked up the free end of the other wire, and wrapped it around the head of the spanner.

"And you do not mind?"

Zoral narrowed her eyes at Peter. "This time, it will be _my pleasure_." With her right hand safely holding the insulated handle of the spanner, she brandished it towards his face. "Are you sure you don't wish to reconsider?" she asked.

"I said hell no the first time," Peter told her, enunciating carefully around the wire. "And I _meant_ it."

"We will see how long that lasts." She pressed the tip of the spanner into the underside of his jaw, just below the wired molar, and then she reached down with her left hand and clicked the power cell's output dial past zero.

Peter flinched, but that was it. He could feel a low current running through his jaw, trickling tiny icy stabs of pain down into his gums. Not nearly as bad pulling teeth.

Then Zoral started turning up the power. Slowly. She pressed harder with the spanner, and Peter let his head tip back and he focused on breathing. Breathe through it. The current kept increasing, and Zoral shoved the spanner into his skin harder. And harder. Until Peter was growling through his clenched jaw.

Until he was sure they were well past the pain level of pulling teeth.

Then she took the spanner away from his jaw, and Peter had a moment of relief -- a _short_ moment -- and then Zoral turned up the power another click, pulled his head sideways with her hand, and dug the spanner into the exposed left side of his neck.

And held it for a few seconds.

And turned up the power another click. And paused for another moment, and moved the spanner down about half an inch.

And repeat.

She kept up this cycle for a little while, slowly moving down Peter's neck and then across his shoulder in tiny increments, turning up the power one more click with every contact. Peter's neck had continuous muscle tremors by the time she got to his shoulder; his skin was marked by a trail of gradually darkening contact burns.

He was screaming by the time she got down past his elbow.

Zoral finally paused for more than a second. "Do you wish to beg for me now?" she asked him.

Peter shook his head, and then took another breath, and said, "The answer... is still _no_."

"Good," Zoral said. "I'm quite enjoying this for now." She turned up the power another click and moved to the next spot on his forearm.

And so on. Down along his wrist, and into the palm of his hand, and then she moved over to his hip and started revisiting some of the older burn marks along his left side.

Finally, some time later, Peter took a breath in between screams to gasp, "Stop!"

Zoral blinked at him and then took the spanner away from a particularly deep burn line along his ribs. "Please," she prompted.

" _Please_ ," Peter gasped. He could feel the residual burning all the way back up to his jaw. His whole upper body was shivering and he couldn't make it stop.

"Please, what?" Zoral asked, and leaned in close.

He thought for a moment, and then told her, "Please... go _fuck yourself_." Part of his brain said, _Ha!_ And another part said, _You masochistic fucking idiot_.

Zoral watched him with her eyes narrowed. "Surely you must remember, Star-Lord, that we have already played this game once before... And I _won_. I know what your face looks like when you've given up."

"Not this time... you looney _bitch_."

"Not _yet_." She stared at him for a moment longer, and then smiled again. "But _soon_." She turned up the power, two clicks this time, and pressed the spanner back against Peter's ribs.

Peter lost track of time again. There was a lot of pain and a lot of screaming. The screams got more ragged as his voice turned hoarse.

Eventually, Zoral stopped when she got back up to his shoulder.

"This _is_ becoming tiresome," Zoral sighed. "And my patience wears thin."

Peter didn't comment. He couldn't think of anything that didn't consist of _Please, please leave me alone_. He concentrated on breathing through the muscle cramps and random twitches.

Tarvath spoke up behind Zoral. "Surely you are not finished?" he asked her.

"Not until I've kept my promise," she said, looking intently at Peter, and then glanced back over her shoulder at Tarvath. "But I wish to accelerate the process."

"And how might you accomplish that?"

"Anything but the power cell, please," Peter muttered, glad that he could still manage to be sarcastic. "It's getting boring."

Zoral stared at Peter for a long moment, and then slowly she smiled. "Well," she told him. "Because you said _please_." She reached down to turn off the cell's power output, and dropped the spanner on the floor next to it. Then she slid gracefully off Peter's lap and walked up to the crate.

Thank god. Peter's muscles trembled with fatigue and shock, and his teeth ached. His shoulder gave another painful twinge.

Zoral studied the crate's contents for a few moments. Finally she said, "Ah," and reached down, and when she stood up she was holding the power drill.

Shit. Peter was missing the power cell already.

"This will do nicely," Zoral said, walking back towards Peter and coming to stand in front of him. The drill made a short whirring sound as a drill bit locked into place. "I will make you an offer, Star-Lord."

The less stubborn, more self-preserving part of Peter's brain said, _She has a_ power drill _, you moron -- give it up already_. He hesitated, but then shook his head. "Answer's still no."

"This is a different offer."

Peter watched her warily.

"Beg me to take you. Now. And I will. Or..." Zoral brandished the drill in her right hand. "I will damage you severely, and _then_ I will take you." She took another step closer and crouched between Peter's knees, and he froze. "You have ten seconds to decide. Then I will decide _for_ you." She ran her left hand up Peter's thigh, and she smiled again. Her fingers wrapped around his belt. "Either way, I will enjoy it more than you will."

 

\--

 

As soon as they were able to confirm the last critical piece of information, the plan went into motion. It had been 19 hours since the Kree woman delivered Quill's jacket with a threat, almost a full planetary day-cycle. It was the middle of the night here, so they had the cover of darkness as an added benefit.

The Kree were operating out of an unused maintenance building on the fringe of the commercial port. There, Rocket climbed up to the roof and entered the building through the ventilation shafts; Gamora and Drax disappeared into the shadow of a nearby building to wait for Rocket's signal.

Rocket moved as quickly and silently as he could through the air ducts. The building was mostly quiet. And then, as he neared one of the designated storage rooms, he heard faint voices. The closer he got, they became more distinct; Kree voices. And then a very human-sounding scream.

Shit. Well, at least it meant Quill was alive.

Rocket found a vent opening in the air duct that gave him a partial view into the room. He could see Quill, and two Kree -- one of whom was the bitch who'd showed up at the Milano with Quill's jacket -- and maybe a couple of humanoid-shaped shadows over by the far wall, but Rocket couldn't see that far. More importantly, Rocket himself couldn't be seen by those in the room. He quickly scrolled open his holographic tablet, marked the location on the floor plan that they'd downloaded, and sent the information off to Gamora and Drax. Now it was their turn to act; they would plant Rocket's improvised bombs, to encourage confusion and panic at the right time, and then the _real_ action would start.

But that would take a few minutes; until then, Rocket had to keep quiet and out of sight. He settled in to appraise the situation.

It didn't look like Quill was missing any pieces -- so far, so good -- but he looked like shit. One of his hands looked fucked up. His arms and torso were littered with bruises and blood and burn marks; the Kree woman straddling his legs made a few new burn marks along Quill's torso as Rocket watched. And Quill was still _smart-mouthing_ at her, when he wasn't screaming.

Quill was a fucking lunatic sometimes. Rocket liked that about him.

Then there was a break in the action, and the woman went and dug out a power drill. She gave Quill a weird ultimatum, and Rocket thought, _What the fuck?_ Clearly he had missed an earlier, critical part of the conversation.

But Quill's face went an unhealthy shade of pale under the blood and bruises. The woman leaned in closer and Quill started to look panicky. Bordering on really fucking freaked out.

Rocket silently readied his gun. Gamora and Drax should be kicking things off any time now. Rocket would make sure to shoot the woman first -- because she was closest to Quill, and also because she was a creepy bitch and Rocket instinctively disliked her.

Finally, the sound of distant explosions rumbled through the walls. The people in the room looked toward the sound, away from Rocket's location; Quill's face was a strange mixture of curiosity and relief.

The woman made a dismissive noise and turned back to Quill, leaning closer to him in a half-crouch between his knees.

Rocket kicked out the vent cover and shot her in the side of the head. She did a full-body twitch and slumped forward, still clutching the drill. As Rocket took aim again and shot the Kree man standing a few feet away, Quill shrieked and jerked, and then went rigid. Rocket winced. Shit, the woman must have triggered the drill on her way down. Rocket hoped it hadn't hit anything important.

The other Kree on the far end of the room were moving. Rocket shot one of them as the Kree entered his line of sight; then he leaped down to the floor, darted past Quill to get a clean field of fire, and made a few more quick shots.

Four more Kree down -- and no one else left standing. Rocket could hear shouting outside the room. He scrambled over to the door, slammed it shut, and threw the locking mechanism. Hopefully that would keep them out long enough for Gamora and Drax to get here. And if it didn't, well, Rocket would be happy to shoot a few more Kree.

"Rocket?" Quill groaned. He sounded terrible, his voice hoarse from screaming.

Rocket kept an eye on the door, and moved back to where Quill was. "Yeah, I'm here."

"You guys came?"

"'Course we did," Rocket answered gruffly. "You're safe now, we've got you. Gamora and Drax should be here any minute, as soon as they're done killing everybody else."

"Great." Quill hissed out a long breath between clenched teeth. "Then, would you get her the _fuck off of me?_ " he demanded, his voice rising into a pained snarl. "And get this _fucking drill bit out of my leg!_ "

"Yeah, I can do that." Rocket reached past Quill's arm to carefully remove the woman's loose hand from around the drill, steadying the drill with his own hand, and then he gave her body a shove. She crumpled to the floor with a wet-sounding thud.

"Oh, god," Quill said. "I never thought I'd be _so glad_ to see someone else's head explode in front of me." At that, Rocket looked up momentarily -- sure enough, there was a fine spray of blue Kree blood across the side of Quill's face, with a few tiny gobs of other stuff mixed in.

Then Rocket focused his attention back onto the drill, stuck into the top of Quill's thigh, about a third of the way down from his hip. It felt like it was jammed -- hit the bone, maybe. Rocket would need to be careful. "Hang on, Quill, this'll hurt. I gotta back this thing out."

Quill gave him a small, exhausted nod, and visibly braced himself. Rocket nudged the trigger in the reverse direction. The drill whined, but didn't budge. He nudged it a little harder, and suddenly it jerked loose, and Quill made a noise deep in his throat.

But that was the worst of it. Rocket turned the power off and carefully slid the drill bit straight out, and turned and tossed the entire drill towards the crate on the floor.

"Fuck," Quill said with a heavy sigh. His head rolled back against the top of the chair. "I am _so_ glad to see you, Rocket. You have no idea."

"I have _some_ idea," Rocket muttered. The wound left by the drill was welling with blood, not dangerously fast but enough that it was concerning. He grabbed some of the discarded strips of fabric, wadded them up, and pressed them against the wound.

With his other hand, Rocket drew a small switchblade from a pocket and flipped it open. Quill gave a tiny, involuntary flinch. Rocket froze.

"No, it's fine," Peter quickly assured him. "I just... had some shitty experiences with knives recently."

Rocket narrowed his eyes in sympathetic anger. "Yeah. I can imagine." He sliced through the various bindings holding down Quill's arms, making sure not to touch Quill's skin with the blade. Then, while Quill reached up with his left hand to gingerly tug the wire out from between his teeth, Rocket made short work of the rest of the bindings.

And none too soon. As he closed the switchblade, there were three loud bangs against the door.

"Rocket!" Gamora shouted from the other side.

"Yeah, we're clear!" Rocket yelled back. "Hold on a sec!" He put the switchblade back into his pocket and tapped Quill's leg next to the wound. "Hold that," Rocket told him.

Quill moved his hand to press down over the wad of fabric, and Rocket removed his own hand and scampered to the door. He turned the lock and pulled the door open. Gamora and Drax stood on the other side, holding their sword and knives at their sides. The blades were coated in blue Kree blood.

"I hope you killed 'em all," Rocket told them.

"We did," Drax answered. Gamora nodded solemnly.

Rocket bared his teeth with grim satisfaction. "Good."

"Peter!" Gamora said, and darted past Rocket. She stopped at Quill's side, hovering, like she wanted to touch him but couldn't decide whether or not she should. Finally she laid her sword on the floor, reached down to tear a wide strip from the lower leg of Quill's pants, and busied herself with carefully wrapping it around Quill's thigh to cover the wound.

Drax followed at a more sedate pace. He stood next to them for a moment, and finally asked Quill, "Who did this to you?"

Quill blinked up at him, and then pointed at the two nearest bodies. "Them, mostly."

"I swore I would remove their heads."

Quill blinked again. "That's... um... Thanks?"

"Well," Rocket said, "I already removed her head. Sort of." Almost half of the woman's skull was missing.

Drax looked at the body for a moment, and then nodded. "That is sufficient." Then he walked over to the other body, and he made a sharp downward swing with one of his knives to sever the neck.

Quill looked like he couldn't decide if this was heartwarming or slightly disturbing. Maybe a bit of both.

Rocket would have loved to let Drax go back through the building and behead every last one of these bastards. But Quill still looked like shit, and he also looked beyond exhausted. "We should get out of here," Rocket said, and the others agreed.

As it turned out, Quill wasn't going anywhere under his own power. One of his knees was fucked internally, and the other ankle was probably broken. So Drax carried him. Quill didn't make a single complaint about the princess treatment.

When Gamora was looking at Quill she looked sad and worried; when she wasn't, cold anger crept over her face. Rocket kind of felt the same way. So he took a detour on the way out of the building, and after they left, his quick piece of sabotage caught fire and the basement of the building imploded. The rest of it burned down from there.

The anger in Gamora's face subsided a little bit after that.

 


	5. Chapter 5

As they walked back to the ship, they were met with some curious looks from passers-by; the looks were always quickly turned away, discouraged by forbidding glares from Gamora and Drax. Peter didn't particularly care about the looks -- he didn't really care about anything beyond the fact that his friends had found him, he was alive, and Zoral couldn't touch him ever again -- but still, it was nice not to be stared at.

Peter felt exhausted and shaky and fucked up, and he felt incredibly lucky. He thought things had been about to get a hell of a lot worse, and then Rocket had appeared out of nowhere, and Peter didn't have to find out how much worse it could have gotten. Still, everything hurt. And he was cold and too hot at the same time -- thanks to the damn fever -- but he was just as happy to be held against Drax's warm torso. Not that he'd ever admit that out loud. But Drax was warm, and solid, and probably not a hallucination. He was also surprisingly gentle for such a scary-looking guy.

No one said anything as they walked along, or if they did, Peter missed it. Here and there, time was slipping past without him noticing. Peter didn't really care about that either.

Suddenly Drax stopped walking, and Peter picked up his head from where it rested against Drax's shoulder. They were next to a small ship, and Rocket was opening the door and going inside, at which point Peter had a question.

"Um, guys?" he asked hesitantly. "Where's the Milano?"

"Waiting for us on the next planet," Gamora answered, following Rocket into the ship. "It was too conspicuous; they needed to think we were gone."

"Oh," Peter said faintly. His left hand clutched at Drax's arm as Drax bent carefully to edge through the doorway.

Ahead of them, Rocket made his way up to the cockpit, to get them off the ground as quickly as possible. Gamora detoured to the side, shoving things onto the floor to clear a space on the tiny ship's only bunk; as soon as she moved aside, Drax gently deposited Peter into a seated position on the bunk, trying to jostle him as little as possible. Peter tried not to wince, but everything hurt and every movement was painful, no matter how careful Drax might be.

When he was finally settled, Peter noticed that Gamora was staring at his right hand. Peter glanced down at his hand and immediately wished he hadn't. Present and remembered pain made him feel queasy, and he held his hand a little closer to his stomach. His hand was probably the most immediate concern. He could _smell_ the infection, and he hadn't tried moving his fingers yet and he didn't want to. Peter knew, intellectually, that they would have to do something about it, but he really wasn't looking forward to it.

"We should cleanse your wounds," Drax announced. "Several are already showing signs of infection."

And there it was. "Yeah," Peter sighed. "I know."

Silence dragged on for a few seconds. Peter could feel Gamora and Drax watching him while he stared at the floor, seeing nothing, fighting an internal battle between _the longer you wait, the worse it will be_ and _please, God, no more_.

Then an arm moved toward Peter and he instinctively flinched away.

Gamora froze.

_Shit, you moron_ , Peter told himself. _Calm the fuck down_.

Her voice was hesitant. "Peter --"

"No, I know, it's fine," he quickly assured her. "I just don't -- I can't --"

Her face started to crumple, but she held it back, and then she just looked _really fucking sad_. Peter felt like an asshole.

"Look, just knock me out, okay?" Peter finally said. "Then you can... without me freaking out on you."

Drax blinked at him. "Peter Quill, I do not think it would be wise --"

"No, not literally knock me out. Just give me a painkiller and a sedative, and I'll sleep through it while you guys... do what you need to do."

Sudden understanding came over Drax's face. "I see," he nodded. "That would make this... less difficult. For all of us."

"I'm just... I've had enough," Peter sighed. "And I'm tired." The first aid was really necessary, but some of it would hurt like hell, and Peter didn't want to hurt any more. And for Gamora and Drax, well... a conscious, screaming patient was a serious distraction when you were trying to perform first aid.

Gamora's eyes gleamed suspiciously for a moment. Then she blinked furiously to clear them, and bent down to open the medical kit sitting on the floor with everything else that had been on the bunk. She rummaged for a moment, and drew out two injectors.

Peter wordlessly held out his left arm. Gamora reached up with the first injector, and hesitated, glancing up at Peter's face for an instant and then back down to his arm. Her hand hovered, not touching him while her eyes looked for an undamaged patch of skin. She finally placed the injector to a spot on the inside of Peter's bicep and depressed the button, and quickly followed that with the second injector.

A brief feeling of coolness spread through Peter's arm and dissipated quickly. Then, a soft numbness started settling over him, like a warm cozy blanket. Sleep sounded nice. Especially a pain-free sleep.

Peter noticed that he was listing sideways, and caught himself with his left hand against the bunk. Then Drax was leaning over Peter, helping him ease down into a lying position on the bunk.

"I'm really glad you guys came and got me," Peter said sleepily. It felt important to make sure that they knew. "They were gonna kill me, you know? ... And dead sucks, but... it _hurt_ so much, and... if you're dead, it doesn't hurt anymore."

Gamora was looking at him again, still not saying anything, but her eyes looked wet.

Peter felt a very faint flash of alarm, and tried to reassure them. "But you guys... found me..." He blinked, slowly, feeling the pull of sleep. "You found me... so it's okay now."

"We will _always_ come for you," Gamora said fiercely, and Drax rumbled some kind of agreement, and Peter finally slid into unconsciousness. He still felt like shit, but at least he felt safe.

 

\--

 

Hands, again, trying to roll Peter onto his side, trying to pull his torso up to vertical. Every movement brought back more aches and pains. Fucking Kree.

_Fuck_. He never left, did he? Peter was fucked in the head and hallucinating, and he dreamed up a rescue for himself. Better than the alternative, better than whatever that crazy blue bitch was going to do. Or was doing -- or had already done? Hell, Peter couldn't remember.

Then Peter was sitting upright, leaning against a warm body that wasn't blue.

Not blue. Gray?

Peter blinked a few times and tried to focus. He didn't recognize his surroundings.

"Quill?" a voice rumbled just above his head, and Peter jerked in surprise. A large, careful hand at his back kept him from moving.

Peter's brain was slow to catch up. "Drax?" he finally said.

"Yes."

"...Oh." Not hallucinating, then. Probably. Unless this was a really good hallucination.

Drax eased his other arm under Peter's knees and lifted, and Peter relaxed against that solid, warm torso and let himself be carried again. It was kind of nice.

"Where are we going?" Peter mumbled, already drifting back toward sleep.

"We are returning to the Milano."

"Hmm..." The Milano. Home. Fuck it -- even if Peter was completely out of his mind and just hallucinating all of this, it was pretty great. Might as well go with it. Slowly, consciousness faded away again, carried off by the receding sound of heavy footsteps.

 

\--

 

Three days, the doctors said, to repair all of the damage, with the procedures spaced at careful intervals so as to not overtax the patient's already-taxed body. Three days of doctors and nurses and techs hovering, testing, operating, scanning, checking, replacing bandages and refilling intravenous fluids. They treated the cuts, the contact burns, and the electrical burns; they patched the cracked and broken ribs; they pieced together his broken ankle and knitted the ligaments in his knee; they treated the residual neural shock on his right side, matching the neat trail of contact burns along his left arm and shoulder. His right hand was a complicated problem, requiring three separate procedures to clear out the infection, repair the damage to the nerves and muscles and tendons, and stitch together a patchwork of torn skin. There was a 95 percent chance of regaining full functionality of the hand, the doctors promised, but there would be permanent scarring.

In between procedures, Gamora and the others made sure Peter Quill was never alone. They took turns sitting by his bed, sometimes one at a time and sometimes in pairs. Even Groot watched over him, sitting in his pot on a small table next to the bed. When Peter wasn't outright sedated, he slept the sleep of the heavily medicated. He never woke; but sometimes, near the end of a cycle of medications when their effects began to ebb, he would start to get restless. His sleep would become fitful and uneasy, and he would unconsciously flinch away from any touch.

This was one of those times. Gamora wished there was something more she could do -- _anything_ \-- but prior experience had proven that any physical contact, no matter how gentle, simply made things worse. Sometimes, he seemed to calm somewhat if she hummed a tune from some song; a half-remembered lullaby from her childhood, or a song from Peter's ridiculous mixtape (ridiculous, but occasionally enjoyable -- not that Gamora would ever admit it). So when he was restless like this, Gamora hummed whatever she could think of.

Groot was with her today, keeping watch from his usual place on the table. While Gamora hummed, Groot gently swayed his spindly arms to the music, and occasionally hummed a few notes with her. Gamora was halfway through the song about pin͂a coladas, trying to remember the next words to sing in her ahead along with the humming, when one of the usual nurses stepped into the room. Gamora stopped humming and gave the nurse a questioning look.

"Just a spot check," the nurse offered, "to see if it's time for another application of the skin-regen gel."

Gamora made a doubtful face. "I don't think now is the best time."

"I know," the nurse sighed. "I would have preferred to do this earlier, but I was caught up with another patient." She leaned over the side of the bed next to Gamora and Groot, and carefully touched her fingertips to the side of Peter's face; she was expecting his unconscious flinch, and maintained fingertip contact; he didn't move again after that, so she tipped his head gently to the side. With her other hand, she lifted the edge of the bandage covering a deep burn mark on the underside of his jaw; she studied the healing burn for a moment, and then re-sealed the bandage. Then she moved her focus to his left arm, and the long swath of bandages that covered the contact burns running from his shoulder down to his hand, interrupted only by the intravenous line feeding into the inside bend of his elbow. The nurse lightly touched his forearm, again waited out the predictable flinch, then peeled back a section of bandage, studied the skin underneath, and replaced the bandage. She moved around to the other side of the bed, and repeated the process for a set of parallel burn marks along his ribs.

Gamora watched in silence. She had already committed to memory every mark, every injury that she could see evidence of, and every bit of itemized damage that the doctors had listed in their examination reports. She wished that she could fetch the Kree bitch, alive, and bring her to Peter and cleave her head in two with her sword. Or, she imagined, she might let Peter hack the bitch to pieces himself, if Gamora thought it would help him feel better. But all Gamora would be able to offer him was a report of the woman's assured death, along with every other one of the sadistic monsters in her company. That would have to be enough. Peter didn't really seem like the kind of person to hack his enemies apart with a sword, anyway.

"I am Groot?" a small voice asked next to Gamora.

The nurse looked up from across the bed. "He's healing very well so far," she said hopefully. "Many of these will heal completely, without leaving a permanent mark."

Gamora wondered to herself how many of those injuries had occurred after they flew away in the Milano. How many _would_ leave permanent scars. Logically, she knew that their course of action had been the best possible choice; but still, she wondered. It felt like guilt.

The nurse shifted her attention to Peter's extensively-repaired right hand. It was clean and infection-free now, but Gamora clearly remembered the mangled flesh that she and Drax had discovered underneath the crusted blood and filth. It made her _extremely_ glad that Peter had been sedated while they cleaned and disinfected it as best as they could with their limited supplies.

"Ah," the nurse said, sounding pleased as she finished peeling back the bandages wrapped around Peter's hand. "This is looking _very_ well."

Groot acknowledged her, sounding pleased. "I _am_ Groot."

Gamora blinked, and tried to replace her mental image of ruined, bleeding flesh with the present reality: clean, stitched and glued from the inside out.

Then, very suddenly, Gamora realized that something was wrong. Peter's breathing had changed. He wasn't calm -- he was _rigid_. Before Gamora could reach him, Peter gave a panicked cry and jerked his partially-unwrapped hand away from the nurse, and he twisted and swung his other arm across in an uncoordinated punch. The nurse shrieked, tried to duck and took the punch straight to the side of her head, and sprawled to the floor on the far side of the bed. When he swung his arm, it yanked the intravenous line out of his elbow with a spatter of bright red blood droplets across the bedsheets.

Groot squeaked worriedly. "I am Groot!"

Gamora had her hands full trying to keep Peter from throwing himself off the bed. "Peter, _stop_!" she said forcefully. "You're safe now -- you're _safe_!" His fist glanced off her cheekbone. She ignored it; her bruises would heal a lot faster than his, if he hit the floor in his current state.

"Get the _fuck away_!" he gasped, still struggling as Gamora managed to pin him to the bed on his right side, facing away from her, with her upper body and one arm -- ever mindful of his right hand, tucked in close to his body. His left hand hit her shoulder, trying to shove her away, and she twisted her other arm around to trap his arm against her side, as gently and carefully -- but firmly -- as she could.

"Peter, stop, it's me -- it's Gamora!"

"I am Groot!"

She tried to catch Peter's eye, but he was staring unfocused at the far wall, his chest heaving for breath under her while he muttered a string of "No -- no, _fuck_ no -- please -- fuck -- _don't_ \-- _no_ \--"

"Peter, _listen to me_... You're safe now, it's okay. You need to _calm down_." Then, finally, something penetrated the fog of half-lucid panic. Peter abruptly went quiet, and stopped moving. "Peter?" Gamora asked. "Peter, you're okay."

"I am Groot?"

Peter's gasping breaths were gradually slowing, settling into a more normal breathing pattern. "Groot?" he finally said.

" _I am Groot_!" Groot waved excitedly from the table behind Peter; Gamora could see his tiny green leaves swishing in her peripheral vision.

Peter's eyes flicked upward to her face."Gamora?"

"Yes," she replied. "Yes, it's me. You're safe now." She carefully loosened her hold on him. "I'm going to let go now. Please stay still."

"The fuck?" he huffed. "Yeah, I'm... I'm good."

"I _am_ Groot."

Gamora slowly straightened, releasing Peter's bandaged left arm and settling it at his side as he gingerly rolled back to lie flat, still holding his right hand against his chest. He rolled his head further to the side and grinned weakly at Groot.

"Hey, Groot," he said.

Gamora noticed a small bloodstain was growing across the bandages on Peter's left arm where the intravenous line had torn loose. " _Damn it_ ," she hissed, grabbing a fistful of the bedsheets to press against the fresh wound.

Startled, Peter looked back up at her. "What --"

"You ripped out your IV line," Gamora said. She glanced toward the wall, where the line still hung, dripping fluids and medication onto the floor. "We're in a hospital. We found you four days ago and brought you here for medical treatment. You're going to be fine."

"I am Groot," Groot said assuredly.

Peter looked down at his right hand, with the bandage still half-unwrapped, exposing the angry red patchwork of glued-together skin underneath. "What about --"

"Your hand will be fine," Gamora assured him. "Some scarring, but no disability."

The nurse finally staggered to her feet on the other side of the bed, and Peter startled again. The nurse squeaked. "Sorry!" she said hurriedly. "Very sorry. Didn't mean to cause any distress." There was a bright red mark on the side of her forehead, and a slight swelling where Peter's fist had struck her. She stood unsteadily, blinking as she tried to keep her equilibrium.

"Oh, shit," Peter breathed. "Did I do that?"

Gamora nodded at his partially-wrapped hand. "She was checking your bandages. You regained consciousness unexpectedly, and you... reacted strongly."

"I am _Groot_!"

"Shit. I'm sorry," Peter said. "Uh, ma'am? Are you okay?"

The nurse took two unsteady steps toward the bed; she looked at Peter, looked at the loose bandages around Peter's hand, looked at Gamora, looked at Peter again, looked at the detached intravenous line hanging near Groot, looked at Groot.

Groot waved an arm at her.

Gamora stared at the nurse, trying to see if her eye pupils gave any indication of a head injury. The nurse clutched at the edge of the bed with one of her own hands while the other hovered uncertainly. She looked up at Gamora again and waved at Peter's elbow, where Gamora still clutched a bloodstained handful of sheets. "Keep pressure on that," the nurse instructed, and then she waved in a more expansive gesture, indicating Gamora and Peter and the loose bandages and Groot and the dripping intravenous line and the rest of that side of the room. "We need -- um -- This is very... untidy."

"I am Groot," Groot agreed.

"Sorry," Peter said.

The nurse stood a little straighter, took a careful step back, and walked out of the room, moving with exaggerated care, like a drunk person. Or like a person with a head injury.

As she moved into the hallway, they heard her ask, "We need the assistance of another nurse in room... thirty-seven? ... thirty-six. Um... in that room. There."

Another voice replied: "Assistance with what? ... Are you okay?"

"He hit me."

Peter turned his head toward the door. "I'm sorry!"

"It was an accident," Gamora added loudly, to clarify the situation. After everything, they should have expected that he might wake up confused and defensive. She would speak to the others, and speak to the nurses, and make sure that they were more cautious in the future.

Peter looked back up at Gamora. "I punched a damn nurse," he said. "I feel like such a dick."

"I am Groot."

"Fuck, my arm hurts," Peter sighed. " _Everything_ hurts."

Gamora patted his shoulder with her free hand, avoiding the bandages. "You ripped out your IV line. And your painkillers are wearing off by now -- you're due for another dose."

"Oh." He yawned, blinked sleepily, and then looked mildly surprised by that.

Another nurse walked briskly into the room, brandishing an injector. Peter's arm tensed under Gamora's hand, and his eyes flicked nervously to the injector.

The nurse stopped an arm's distance away and tried to look as non-threatening as she could. "I have your next round of painkillers here, Mr. Quill. Along with a sedative. We need to reinsert your intravenous line, and check a few wound sites to make sure you didn't re-injure anything."

Peter looked back up at Gamora, then back at the nurse, then back to Gamora.

"It's fine, Peter," Gamora reassured him. "I'll be right here."

Peter finally gave a nod of assent. "Okay."

The nurse stepped closer, not making any sudden movements, and slowly and precisely she delivered the injection to an unbandaged part of Peter's arm. Peter's gaze tracked her movements the whole time.

When the nurse stepped back, Peter looked up at Gamora again. His eyes were already developing a glazed look as the drugs dispersed through his bloodstream.

"Go back to sleep, Peter," Gamora told him. "I'll be here."

 

\--

 

After that, the nurses made sure to do their status checks near the beginning of a dosage cycle, as much as possible. They also made sure that the intravenous line was better secured to his arm, which proved to be a wise decision the next time he woke up in a half-dazed panic.

Five days after they had arrived at the hospital, Peter was awake more often than not. And he wanted to get out of there. Everything was mended, if not fully healed yet, and he was certifiably free of infection. His hand still looked kind of god-awful, but the damage was repaired and the doctors said he would eventually regain full sensation and mobility -- all it needed now was time and careful therapeutic exercises. The same could be said for his knee and ankle; he could walk now, carefully, and soon enough he would be back to his normal capabilities.

He asked the doctors and the nurses and the techs when he could leave -- again and again, persistently, because persistence is the key to success. Finally, the primary doctor in charge of his case relented and agreed that Peter could be released -- into the care and supervision of Gamora (officially) and Drax and Rocket and Groot (unofficially). The doctor dictated to Peter -- at some length -- about what activities Peter should and should not do, and what exercises he should perform to rehabilitate which injuries. Gamora asked a lot of clarifying questions, wanted to know all the details. The doctor also insisted that Peter make a follow-up visit, either here or to one of the facility's networked sister institutions, in ten days.

Whatever. Fine. Peter was willing to jump through the hoops if it meant he could get out of here. Physically, he would be fine; mentally, he desperately needed to get back to familiar surroundings.

It was a slow process, but eventually the conversations were over and the paperwork was processed. Peter was a (relatively) free man. He put on his own clothes, he walked out of the hospital on his own two feet, and he boarded the Milano. He was home.

_Finally_.

Time to put this whole shitty experience behind him. Peter _hated_ being stuck in hospitals. Although, it was nice to see evidence that his shipmates (teammates? fellow Guardians?) seemed to care enough to not only commit homicide on his behalf, but to keep him company when he was unconscious. And before that, well, being rescued was awesome, but _needing_ to be rescued always sucked. As for what came before the rescue... Peter would be just as happy to forget about it entirely.

 

\--

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He was in the chair in the dirty gray room. He was always in the chair. He was going to die in the chair. Zoral straddled his lap, slowly and deliberately shredding Peter's chest with her dagger-sharp fingernails. Everything _burned_. Peter could hardly breathe. Zoral's one good eye glared balefully from her ruined face; the other was missing along with a decent chunk of her skull.

" _You_ could never be worthy of holding an Infinity Stone," Zoral sneered derisively, blue blood dribbling from between her lips as she spoke. "Not you, a coward and a _murderer_."

A mob of countless Kree loomed in the background, silent and faceless, watching. Always watching. "Murderer," their whispers echoed.

"Not a murderer," Peter wheezed. " _Not_."

Zoral's fingernails drove in further. "Liar! _Murderer!_ " she shrieked, her blood spattering across Peter's face. "WHO WILL DEMAND JUSTICE FOR _MY_ DEATH?"

" _Justice_ ," the faceless mob whispered, drawing closer.

Zoral leaned closer to Peter, flexing her fingers between his exposed ribs. "I _demand_ justice," she spat, and then her voice dropped lower. "Will _you_ give me justice, _Star-Lord_?"

Peter couldn't breathe anymore. Couldn't speak. Couldn't move. Zoral's fingers felt like knives stabbing into his lungs. Her tongue darted out to trace the edge of his jaw.

"You still need to pay for your sins," she whispered huskily into Peter's ear. "I wasn't finished with you."

Then her fingers clenched inside Peter's chest, and Peter found his voice and _screamed_.

"I DEMAND JUSTICE!" Zoral shrieked, right into Peter's face, with her blood coating her teeth and streaming down from the ruined side of her skull. "WAKE UP SO I CAN _TAKE_ WHAT IS MINE! _WAKE UP_ , QUILL!" she roared, and suddenly Peter could move again, and he threw his arms up and _shoved_ \--

 

 

Peter's forehead smacked into something hard and he dropped back down. Into his bunk. On-board the Milano.

He blinked at the ceiling, breathing hard.

"Motherfucker," he finally gasped.

"Quill?"

''Huh?" Peter looked toward the voice. On the floor a few feet away, Rocket was sprawled on his backside, looking cautiously up at Peter. "Rocket?"

"You awake now?" Rocket asked.

Peter rubbed his aching forehead. "Yeah, I'm awake. Sorry, did I --"

"Yeah," Rocket said, slowly standing up to come closer. "Knocked me right on my ass."

"Shit, I'm sorry."

"Nah, I shoulda known better. You had another nightmare?"

Peter nodded, slowly getting his panicked breaths under control as the adrenaline started to drain away.

"You wanna talk about it?"

"No." Peter squeezed his eyes shut and tried _not_ to picture Zoral's furious, ruined face. Her one good eye glaring angrily. The blood.

His adrenaline started to spike again.

"Wanna play cards?" Rocket asked. "Just 'til you're ready to go back to sleep."

Peter opened his eyes. "That might be awhile," he admitted.

"I got nowhere else to be." Rocket climbed up onto the bunk and sat down near Peter's feet, and snatched the deck of playing cards off the shelf on the wall. This wasn't the first time this had happened. Nor, Peter suspected, would it be the last. Rocket, Gamora, and Drax had all taken turns waking Peter up -- it was usually whoever was closest at the time, or whoever was awake to hear him when it got bad. When it was Drax, he and Peter played some weird, complicated kind of Go Fish. Whenever it was Gamora's turn, Peter would introduce her to a different variation of poker. When it was Rocket, he would teach Peter how to play some new game that Peter had never heard of. Rocket knew more card games than anyone else Peter had ever met.

Rocket handed the deck to Peter, and Peter started shuffling the cards.

"So, what'll it be this time?" Peter asked.

"You ever play Garthian eight-card stacks?"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys. I am SO SORRY that it took me this long to finish the final chapter. I always struggle with writing the "comfort" part of H/C -- it doesn't come to me naturally. Not sure what that says about me as a person. Probably that I'm a bit twisted, but I already knew that! :)
> 
> Anyway, it's finished. Thanks for reading. I really appreciate all the feedback I've gotten.


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